


Unlikely Kindness

by Elisif



Series: The Angband Generosity Series [1]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bondage, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Non-Consensual Touching, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Shaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 18:23:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16581692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisif/pseuds/Elisif
Summary: Rog is assigned to teach a newly arrived captive the rules of Angband. Just an excuse to exorcise some especially nasty Angband headcanons. Heed the tags





	Unlikely Kindness

Rog pushed open the door of the cell and turned to look at its occupant he had been assigned.

In the far corner of the room lay the pathetic figure of a slumped, naked elf, curled up and sobbing facedown in a pool of freezing water. As he approached, he saw that splashes of soap lather and locks of red hair littered the floor around the pale, shivering body; whatever “alterations” the lieutenant had ordered be carried out upon its body had only just finished. Only the elf’s fine physique- bad, bad luck to arrive in Angband’s depths with a body like that!- and apparent well-fed-ness indicated that it had been an aristocrat until this morning.

One of the arms shifted, and Rog could quickly see the- well, one of the- objects of the elf’s distress; the newly shaved head, and even his hardened heart was moved to some small pity. A shaved head was a shocking enough violation to a lowborn elf with just ordinary hair, but to a highborn elf whose hair carried sensory abilities like a cat’s whiskers and was a vital sexual organ, it was probably more akin to being castrated. And from the brief information he had been told, this elf had probably never had a hand laid on him before this morning.

Still, long experience dealing with new prisoners told him it was the kindest option to be harsh. To be too kind would leave an unfairly false impression. He knelt down and laid a burn-scarred hand on the elf’s damp and quivering back.

“Listen,” he said, firmly. “It’s no good sobbing over wanting clothes, because you simply won’t be getting any. You’re a prisoner now, no matter how you ended up here, and that means you’ll be naked. You’ll just have to get used to that fact.”

The elf did not budge, continued sobbing with its bare head buried under its arms. Rog decided to cut to the chase.

“Listen. You can curl up like this now, but when the guards come back, you’ll have to turn over and face them in such a way that they can see your penis. You must.”

Horribly, the elf let down its arms and looked at him through two black eyes and a badly beaten face. A scandalised and barely audible “why” escaped its bruised lips as it looked at him in growing horror.

“That is simply the rule for male elves here” he sighed, repeating the rules for a thousandth time like an exhausted parent. “If you’ve got a cock, the guards are to have an unobstructed view of it at all times. If they catch you with a hand between your legs or knees drawn up against your chest, or anything at all that could be seen as trying to cover yourself in their presence, you’ll get a whipping or sometimes far worse. You get a few seconds to adjust when they enter a room and that’s it. No exceptions.”

The mouth remained agape.

“You’ll get used to it, faster than you’d think. The first days are the hardest…”

A loud and horrible keening came from the elf’s throat, and for a moment Rog simply let it lie there in the muck, balled up and shuddering. What else was there to be done? In partial frustration- no one who had been in Angband as long as he had could ever be entirely patient with the wailings of new and as yet un-hardened prisoners- he allowed his mind to wander, to touch against the bubble-delicate outer shell of the sphere of the other elf’s Osanwe. And what he found made his mind flinch.

Though elves couldn’t tell each other’s age at sight, they could sense one another’s degree of world experience and weariness through Osanwe, which tended to correlate with age. And in experience, by god this elf was _young_. Whatever its real age, in worldliness, it was only barely more than a teenager. It had no idea at all what was coming.

It was one small mercy of Angband was that the master and lieutenant almost universally targeted older elves; there was no point grabbing and snatching someone with fifty years’ labour experience when you could get someone with three hundred years of skill for the same effort. Elves this “young” were thankfully exceptionally rare in Angband at that time.

And this one was likely going to be treated worse than any other.

With great reluctance, Rog opened up the hardened shell of his heart and let out a little of what counted as generosity by Angband standards.

“Come,” he said.  “Turn over. Sit up, I’ll let you keep your knees up for a moment until you’re ready to bring them down. I guarantee, it will be less frightening if you do it now then if you wait till they come back in here.”

Tearfully, rubbing its nose with the back of its fist, the elf pulled itself into a sitting position, legs pulled up against its chest.

“Did they fit you with an identity band?” asked Rog.

The elf nodded, its head buried in its hands and shuddering visibly.

“Do you remember the number that on it was?”

“No…” it choked.

Rog braced himself.

“Alright. I was ordered to check the number they gave you, so either you have to show the band to me or I’ll have to look for myself. Can you do that?”

It nodded; with crushing, agonised reluctance, the elf lowered its knees and parted its legs. Biting down to keep from sobbing, it lifted its penis between thumb and forefinger and held it back against the pale and newly shaved base of its stomach, revealing the numbered metal band fixed tight around the base of its scrotum. Quickly, Rog leant forward, pulled the two gently apart to fully reveal the band and noted the lengthy serial number inscribed upon it. He had a knack for memorising them, which was how he had acquired this position in the first place.

“Whenever the orcs or lords announce an inspection,” he said, looking the elf in its bloodshot eyes. “That is what they want to see. Line up with the others and hold it out of the way. If you don’t, they’ll do it themselves. You have to decide for yourself which is worse.”

It nodded. He took a deep breath.

“It is easiest,” he said, “If you learn not to think of your cock as a part of yourself.  Just as something attached to you. It stopped being yours when you walked through these doors, and nothing can change that now.”

He stood up and pulled the elf reluctantly to its feet, speaking with tired earnestness as he did so.

“Don’t expect kindness from anyone else,” he said, pulling the elf further upright. “Obey the rules, don’t give them reason to hurt you. The higher you work your way up the ranks, the fewer of the rules apply. Look, I’m not naked because I’ve worked my way up to this level and I’m allowed to wear these trousers, see? But I was where you are once, and I remember what it was like, how hard it was…”

For a moment, the elf stood fully upright and exposed as ordered, shaking a little. But after a moment, something cracked and it fell doubling over to its knees.

“I can’t do it!” it gasped, clutching its hands between its legs and shaking. “I can’t do it…” it sobbed, bent almost to the floor.

Rog pushed away the knot in his chest. He had seen this before in other highborn captives. Pride could be a powerful force indeed, and this elf clearly wasn’t going to obey until it had been beaten into him mercilessly. With a sigh, Rog removed his belt and the captive flinched.

“I’M not going to whip you,” he said, bluntly. “What I’m going to do is tie your hands behind your back, so you can’t be tempted break the rules. It will give you some time to get used to the nudity, and you’ll be punished less.”

“It doesn’t look it, but believe me, it’s a kindness,” he said, securing the bond around the prisoner’s hands in a tightly wound knot and breathing heavily, before leading the prisoner out the door.

…

Centuries later, Rog found himself sent to attend Himring’s midwinter festivities as visiting ambassador of the community he was settled with at that time.

He and his companions had been delayed by a ferocious blizzard; their packhorses had struggled to make the exhaustive climb to the mountain fortress in the deep snow, and the festivities were already wildly underway by the time they were admitted to the great hall, adorned with holly and greenery and silver decorations and echoing with normally forbidden Quenya ballads. The raucous dancing did not halt as they entered, with a flurry of snow pulled in behind them on the wind produced by the weight of the vast doors; they passed their soaked furs and cloaks off onto the servants and were handed goblets of mulled wine and festive crowns of paper flowers. But the founder of the feast- the celebrated crippled war hero who had honoured them with this invitation- he DID turn away from his conversation at the high table to look into the eyes of the newcomers.

And when he did, instantaneous, horrible recognition flashed through Rog’s mind.

 _No_ , he thought _. It couldn’t be…_

The more he looked as their eyes briefly met, there was no mistaking it. The near universally admired leader and brilliant diplomat, overcomer of the impossible and finest soldier in Beleriand… and unmistakably, that pathetic wretch of a prisoner he’d been assigned to all those years ago.

He had wondered before, of course, whether he and Angband’s most famous captive had ever crossed paths; but then, he’d been asked to explain the ways of Angband to hundreds of prisoners in those unmentionable years where the path of his past turned its darkest. All he’d been ever told was that that particular captive had been a valuable aristocrat, and after their encounter he’d never laid eyes on him again. He had never even heard of Feanor or the Noldor’s return at that time, for word of either had been meticulously kept from the fortress’ lower ranks and his rank had been, after all, comparatively lowly…

The brief locking of their eyes continued, two very badly scarred faces meeting in mutual shock across the dancing crowds of Himring’s great hall. Through Osanwe, the sensation of recognition from the Lord of Himring flittered through Rog’s mind like sparks striking hot off a lump of flint. A hard line in his thoughts followed, and Rog recognised it well from years of reading the minds of Angband’s captives; firm, adamant denial of what the eyes were seeing, the fierce pushing down of reality to somewhere it could be swallowed and stifled. Nothing of that suffering was visible on the lord’s face though, and a moment later he had returned to toasting and feasting with his companions as though it had never happened.

Rog stood lost in his wine and his thoughts, the colours of the festive revelry swirling about his mind as if he were already inebriated. Finally, he felt a nudge from one of his companions.

“Rog, we’re meant to go pay our respects, pledge fealty at the high table. Are you coming?”

He took a long swig from his goblet, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“No,” he said. “When we get back, we’ll tell them I did, but I shan’t meet him face to face.”

His companion’s mouth twisted.

 “I can’t explain,” said Rog, “But though it doesn’t look it, believe me, it’s a kindness.”


End file.
